Tag Archives: rc

It’s only one sleep until very probably our least favourite day of the year. Yes Black Friday is on the horizon once again, when the customers of Walmart will likely knife one another over a half-price toastie maker. TLCB’s home nation, copying everything that America does, seems to have gone equally nuts this year, and if you think the British are more civilised and will queue quietly for a discounted television, you are very muchmistaken.

As has become customary, we won’t be partaking in the madness, but if you do choose to join the mindless zombie hoards you could do worse than pick a vehicle like this to assist you. It’s called a ‘wheel dozer’, being half wheel-loader, half bull-dozer, and it would be perfect for getting to the front of the Black Friday riots.

This excellent remote controlled Technic version comes from Superkoala and features 4×4 drive, articulated steering, pendular suspension, an inline-6 piston engine, and a hefty raising/lowering front blade. It also includes third-party BuWizz brick providing bluetooth control and – more handily – up to eight times the power of LEGO’s own Power Functions set-up. This means it should have no problem pushing rival shoppers out of the way or, in our case, TLCB Elves on whom we’ve been ‘testing’ it.

Whilst we avoid the ridiculous greed, fights, and soul-destroying consumerism of Black Friday by seeing how many Elves we can push simultaneously into the cleaning cupboard, you can see more of Superkoala’s superb Technic wheel dozer at both Flickr and the Eurobricks forum, plus you can watch the model in action via the video below.

Like this:

We’ve featured some amazing remote control off-road vehicles here at The Lego Car Blog over the years. However despite their engineering excellence, they’re often massive, heavy, and very expensive to build. Not so today’s creation, which comes from previous bloggee, published author, and all-round Technic legend Sariel.

Sariel has decided to take the Technic off-roader formula and simplify it, using normal parts, light weight, and an affordable price tag to create his very green Jeep Wrangler Trailcat.

Three Power Functions motors, a battery box and a standard IR receiver provide remote control drive, whilst simple oscillating axle suspension and four-wheel-drive (with no differentials) allow Sariel’s Trailcat to off-road like a much larger model. All in it weights under a kilogram, and such simplicity means that we think it would make a very good LEGO set.

Fortunately Sariel thinks so too, as he’s published his Jeep to the LEGO Ideas platform where it could become an official LEGO set. You can find all the details via Sariel’s website, the Eurobricks forum or via the video below, where there are links to LEGO Ideas and you can add your vote.

Like this:

Even for Soviet Russia, this vehicle is weird. This is a BWSM 80, which sounds perilously close to something your Mom would be into, but was in fact a prototype Soviet design that fused a GAZ 53 truck with a DT 75 bulldozer to create… whatever the hell this is.

In normal use the BWSM 80 operated as per a regular truck, albeit one with a track system suspended between the wheels. However in extreme conditions the BWSM could lower the track system thus raising its wheels off the ground, and thereby becoming a skid-steer tracked vehicle in the process. If, as we were, you’re struggling to figure that out, take a look at the video below!

That video, and the creation within it, comes from previous bloggee (and apparent Technic wizard) Samolot of Eurobricks, who has recreated the Russian prototype in brilliantly-functional remote control Technic form.

Two Power Functions L Motors drive both the wheels and the tracks, with some ingenious decoupling mechanism we’re struggling to fathom dividing the power appropriately between the two. A Medium Motor drives the lifting mechanism to deploy the tracks, which also feature suspension, and there are LED headlights up front too.

There’s much more of Samolot’s wonderfully odd creation to see at the Eurobricks discussion forum via the link above, or you could just watch that amazing video again!

Like this:

Flickr’s Rat Dude has a very different idea of what constitutes ‘paradise’ to that of TLCB Team. Still, we suppose it’s relative, as compared to a post-apocalyptic wasteland* this roving container town may well be paradise on tracks. Beautifully built, Rat’s ‘Last Paradise’ features remote control drive and a two-speed gearbox controlled via a third-party SBrick bluetooth brick, allowing the town to rove around the halls of TLCB Towers creeping-out the Elves. Whilst we get on with that you can see more of Rat’s wonderful creation on Flickr – click the link above to take a look.

Like this:

Having already posted one awesome Mercedes-Benz Zetros expedition truck earlier in the year we didn’t expect to find another. But like feet, Noah’s animals, and your Mom’s chin, Zetroses it seems, come in twos.

Each wheel is driven by an XL motor, a Servo controls the steering, and two further Medium motors power the winch and a retractable awning.

Fourteen sets of LEDs give jrx’s Zetros working head and tail lights, flashing turn signals, roof-mounted floodlights, and even interior lighting. The model also includes functioning suspension on all four wheels, a fully fitted interior, and an ATV stored on-board.

There’s much more to see of jrx’s excellent expedition Zetros at both Flickr and the Eurobricks forum – click on the links to join the journey, and you can watch the truck in action via the video below.

Like this:

You wait all day for an autonomous Volvo concept loader, and then two come along at once. Or so the saying goes. Following the 42081 Volvo Concept set, LEGO and Volvo have teamed up to run a competition to design the Volvo construction vehicle of the future.

Here are two entries, each packed with Power Functions motors and remote control functionality, and each looking quietly terrifying to boot.

First up (above) is R. Skittle‘s ‘Volvo Proteus’, a fully autonomous self-loading hauler. Many many motors power the loader’s drive, all-wheel-steering, the huge swivelling bucket arm, and the sliding and tipping bucket, and there’s much more to see at Skittle’s photostream. Click the link above to view the full gallery of this superbly engineered creation.

Today’s second concept (below) sends Volvo into space, with this enormous ‘Mars Mission’ loader/dozer/tunneller/excavator, all the things required for some Mars-based construction. Built by Desert Eagle (aka Desert752) of Eurobricks this metre-long monster is powered by sixteen motors, with all-track drive, crab steering, a self-levelling superstructure via linear actuators, 360 degree excavator boom rotation with elevation, extension and a synchronised counterweight, 360 degree tunneller boom rotation and elevation, and a drill head that looks like something from your Mom’s Ann Summers chest.

There’s a whole lot more to see of both of today’s Volvo concepts via the links above, and you can enter the competition yourself via LEGO Ideas by clicking here.

A question we’ve all been asked by those who always seem to be just a little shiftier than ourselves. Flickr’s Dennis Glaasker, aka Brickonwheels, does have a light though. In fact he’s got fifty-two of them!

Thanks to third-party custom lighting specialists Brickstuff, Dennis’s beautiful 1:16 scale Peterbilt 379 features a spectacularly realistic lighting set-up to match the brilliance of the build. Fifty-two LEDs are placed throughout the model with power coming from a battery box hidden within the sleeper portion of the cab.

Dennis hasn’t stopped there either, as whilst the bricks are 100% LEGO many have been chromed for added realism, whilst a third-party SBrick brings programmable bluetooth control to the three Power Functions motors that power the truck.

Built for the Legoworld 2018 event in the Netherlands there’s more to see of Dennis’s 3,000-piece masterpiece at his photostream – Click this link to light up.

Like this:

Truck racing is one of motorsport’s weirder classes, taking vehicles that are the least suitable for any form of speed and cornering, and making them corner at speed. Mostly.

Still, the resultant vehicles are immensely impressive, and it’s one of these, the Mercedes-Benz Tankpool racing truck, that Technic-building legend Sariel has chosen to recreate in his latest model.

Driven by four LEGO Buggy Motors, Sariel’s racing truck harnesses the power of two BuWizz bluetooth bricks, delivering up to eight times the power of LEGO’s own Power Functions battery. That gives Sariel’s 1.5kg model a top speed approaching 20km/h, and makes it massive fun to pilot down the halls of TLCB Towers.

Besides BuWizz power, RC tyres and custom stickers, Sariel’s creation is all LEGO, and really showcases how far the little Danish bricks can be pushed. Watch the video below to see Sariel’s Mercedes-Benz Tankpool truck in action, and you can read all the details on Flickr, the Eurobricks forum, and at Sariel’s website.

Like this:

First shown here in 2015, Jarda’s gorgeous Tatra 815 has been updated in red for an upcoming Lego exhibition in Denmark. With Power Functions remote control drive and steering and beautifully replicated detailing Jarda’s Tatra is amongst the very best Lego trucks on the ‘net.

Jarda’s update also allows us to showcase something that we overlooked previously; this 815 can tip in two directions. How this works is beyond the collective mind of TLCB staff but it appears to do so brilliantly. Click here to head to Brickshelf for the complete gallery of superb images.

Like this:

Take that Audi Q7! We hate the Audi Q7, and the other pointlessly-enormous, overly-aggressive, status-symbols-on-wheels in the segment in which it occupies. We’ll happily take one of these though, as if you’re going to have a vehicle that’s impossible to park, won’t fit down a country lane, and drinks fuel, it may as well do all of those things to absolute excess!

This is an articulated 8×8 off-road truck, loosely based on those by companies such as Foremost, and resembling some of the Soviet Union’s more impressively weird machinery. It’s been built by previous bloggee and Technic-building genius Nico71, and it’s an astonishing piece of engineering.

Using eight wheels and tyres from the brilliant LEGO Technic Claas Xerion 5000 set, Nico’s truck features all-wheel-drive, with one XL Motor driving the front two axles, and another the rear. None of the axles are steered as the entire truck articulates in the middle thanks to an L Motor and a pair of linear actuators.

Each axle is suspended by an ingenious leaf-spring system, there’s an inline-6 engine next to the asymmetrical cab, and a set of four outriggers stabilise the truck for when it’s using the neat folding crane mounted over the articulation point. Powered by another two Power Functions motors this can extend, rotate and winch (see the image below), and like the drive and steering is operable remotely via bluetooth thanks to two third-party SBrick bluetooth bricks.

There’s loads more to see of Nico’s ridiculously impressive build at his website, where full technical details and instructions (yes really, so please don’t message us!) are available, plus the complete gallery of images is available to view via Brickshelf.

Like this:

Sometimes you don’t need a million-horsepower hypercar as inspiration for a brilliant Technic build. This is a humble skid-steer compact tracked loader, and it is one of the most fun-looking Technic models TLCB Elves have discovered in ages.

Like this:

Renault may be better known for things like this and this, but it’s a little-known fact that they’re also the inventors of the modern tank. The tank was first used by the British Army in the First World War, but it was horrendously slow, unreliable and a magnet for unwanted attention. Renault took the idea and simplified it, creating a vehicle that was much lighter, more reliable, and featured a fully-armoured 360-degree rotating turret.

The Renault FT-17 could also be operated by a few of just two, and it thus became a phenomenally successful design. Around 3,000 units were produced in France (mostly in 1918), whilst another 950 were built under license in the United States. Twenty-seven countries/revolutionary armies used the FT-17 over the next thirty years and the design fought in almost a dozen separate wars, which probably says as much about mankind’s propensity for war as it does the brilliance of the FT-17.

This beautiful Lego replica of the Renault FT-17 has been built by TLCB regular Sariel, who has recreated the world’s first light tank in glorious detail. Inside the stunningly accurate shell are three Power Functions motors, a Micro Motor, and a third-party SBrick programmable bluetooth control brick. Each track is suspended via oscillating bogies and powered by an individual Medium Motor, a third Medium Motor rotates the gun turret, whilst the Micro Motor powers the gun barrel elevation.

Like this:

Originally a motorcycle manufacturer, then maker of the ridiculous Atom, Ariel have since stepped into the world of off-road buggies, and what a way they’ve done it. Using the Atom’s unique external cage design and a 2.4 litre Honda engine, the Nomad can annihilate almost anything off-road, and it doesn’t even have all-wheel-drive.

This incredible-looking Technic version can, we strongly suspect, do exactly the same within the off-road Lego Community (there is such a thing!), especially as it’s rocking a third-party BuWizz+ bluetooth control battery that can deliver up to eight times the Power of LEGO’s own system to the twin XL motors driving the rear wheels.

Like this:

It’s as orange as your Mom and just as capable of getting dirty. The model in question comes from TLCB regular Horcik Designs and is based on the classic Tatra T148 all-wheel-drive truck.

Underneath the minimalist Technic bodywork is a full truck trial remote control drivetrain, with working suspension on all wheels, steering courtesy of a Power Functions Medium motor, and six-wheel-drive which – as any seasoned Technic builder will know – is a really tricky thing to do.

There’s more to see of Horcik’s excellent Technic Tatra on Flickr – click the link above to grab an orange slice.

Like this:

No, this TLCB staff member hasn’t titled this blog post from recent self experience, and he’s not thinking about you at all Amelia. Coincidentally today’s creation is, like Amelia, capable of a sizeable dumping. Built by previous bloggee Damian Plesniak (aka damianple) this neat European truck and tipper trailer combo could be an official LEGO Technic set, and contains some excellent motorised functions.

The tractor unit features remote control drive and steering, whilst the large three-axle trailer’s tipping function is motorised too, with power coming from a battery box concealed within the truck’s cab. Damian’s model also features manually operated stabiliser legs, opening doors, and a reasonably detailed (for Technic) interior too.

There’s more to see of Damian’s remote control truck and dump trailer at both Flickr and Brickshelf. Join this writer at the complete image galleries via the links above, where he’s already totally forgotten a recent dumping.